


Love Connection (in Hell)

by cinnamon_skull



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Alternate Universe - Flower Shop, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Awkward Flirting, Fluff, M/M, Valentine's Day, Valentine's Day Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-14
Updated: 2016-02-14
Packaged: 2018-05-20 13:42:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,929
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6008524
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cinnamon_skull/pseuds/cinnamon_skull
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Eren hates Valentine's Day. When a real-life Cupid visits his shop for some flowers, all bets are off.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Love Connection (in Hell)

**Author's Note:**

> Here. I’m dead inside, but here, have some ereri Valentine’s Day mush written for the strange among us (including me).

Eren had always thought it a strange thing. That a singular, innocuous day happening to fall on February 14 each year would cause the barriers protecting humankind from demons to tear.

What other reason could explain the Hell on earth that was the week leading up to Valentine’s Day? For a holiday marketed as one to celebrate love in all its purest (and expensive) forms, people had a tendency to turn…well, vicious.

Eren thought nothing could top last year, when two men had brawled over the last box of heart-shaped chocolate five minutes before the shop closed on February 13. They’d broken two flower displays, bled all over the floor and crushed the box of chocolate in their haste to display their macho absurdity. But both men had gone home with black eyes in the backseat of a cop car, because nothing said, “I love you” quite like a pair of handcuffs and restraining order paperwork.

This year wasn’t much different, as far as Eren could tell. Same possessed men and women chaotically running, looking like their souls had been sold to the Greater Demon known as Hallmark in exchange for shiny, heart-shaped balloons that never died.

If only love were so eternal.

“Eren, you do know that we make almost a third of our yearly income during the month of February, right?” Mikasa said as she stripped thorns off a pile of long-stemmed roses.

“So?” 

“So, don’t be so miserable.” Mikasa made a gesture like she was cutting a smile into her cheeks with the thorn strippers that was actually more threatening than anything else. “The Walking Darlings pay your rent, love.”

Suddenly, Jean’s head poked through the backroom door. “Eren, I have a…a situation out here, can you help take the next customer?”

“Have Armin do it, can’t you see I’m up to my elbows in red polka-dot ribbons?” Eren replied tersely. There were few things he hated more than making bows, but such was the luck of the dreaded Valentine’s Day draw.

“He’s got a HHH hemming and hawing over a dozen roses that quote look like they’ve barely survived a zombie apocalypse unquote,” Jean rolled his eyes. Hopeless Horny Husbands, Eren was familiar with the type that waited until the last minute and then demanded nothing less than spectacular. As if Karla’s would sell half-dead flowers. “Please, Jaeger.” 

Eren threw down the cutting shears and industrial-sized ribbon roll with a huff. “Fine! But just a few customers or else we’ll be here until 6 a.m. pulling these deliveries together. 

Jean gave Eren a relived, half-grin. “Don’t worry, mate. I’ve got a piece of THC heart-shaped chocolate with your name on it. Homemade treat, Valentine.”

“You better not have used the back kitchen stove to make those—” Jean shut the door on Mikasa, cutting off her voice mid-rant.

“Save the mushy stuff for Marco,” Eren said, wiping his hands on his apron and joining Jean at the register counter. “But I’ll definitely take a trip to the chocolate factory.” 

“Get ready for wonderland, dude,” Jean joked and then sobered at the impending crowd of angry hellspawn pushing their way to the front of the flower shop. “Fuck Valentine’s Day, man.” 

Eren whistled. “Lucifer’s army came out to play today.”

Jean was lost in the mob trying to placate an older woman shouting about plastic vases.

“Can I help who’s next?” Eren asked, resigning himself to his fate. 

A douchebag looking bro stepped up to the counter with a backwards baseball cap and board shorts, despite the subzero temperature. “I need a dozen roses.”

“Okay,” Eren jotted down a note on a receipt script. “Color preference?”

“Whichever is gonna get me laid the hardest, right bro?” laughed the frathouse court jester. He held up a fist which Eren ignored.

He rolled his eyes and checked off the box for a rainbow mix, since this guy had so graciously asked for his help. “Do you want to add chocolate or a stuffed bear for an extra $10? Special price today only.”

“Nah dude, I’m not a pussy,” Lieutenant Douchebag cackled, leering at a girl standing in line behind him when he said it.

Eren clenched his fists beneath the counter and forced himself to remain calm. “What do you want the card to say?” 

“Don’t you have something already written up that I could just sign my name to?” boyfriend of the year asked.

“Sure.” Who said romance was dead? He got the rest of Romeo’s delivery details and rang him up quickly, just so he wouldn’t have to stare at his dumb face for longer than necessary. 

“Next,” Eren called, looking down to scribble a new order number at the top of his pad.

“Hello,” said a soft, calm voice so unlike the typical Valentine’s Day procrastinator. There didn’t seem to be an ounce of desperation in that voice, which was quite alarming for the twelfth hour shift.

Eren looked up, and then down, at his short customer. “Hi. How can I help you?” 

“Do you have any lisianthus blooms? I took a look around the shop but all I saw were roses,” he said, scrunching up his nose in a way that Eren found instantly endearing. There was nothing else about his severe face that suggested he had a sense of humor or any warmth about him.

“Actually, I have some fresh ones in the back. They’re not really popular on Valentine’s Day, but between you and me, I think they’re a hell of lot more romantic.”

He scrunched up his face again, and Eren felt himself drawn to the stranger’s neatly styled black hair and delicate throat. “Well, they’re for my mother, so hopefully not too romantic. Her birthday happens to fall on this shithole holiday.”

“Oh,” Eren said quickly, feeling the blush rise to his cheeks. “Well, still a very nice choice. Does she have a favorite shade?”

“Lavender, if you have it. If not,” he paused, and then gave Eren a lazy, hooded look, but still, no smile. “Surprise me.” 

Eren stilled and then swallowed tightly. “Okay, sure. What’s the name for the order?”

“Levi,” he answered easily, taping his fingers against the counter quietly as his eyes zeroed in on Eren’s nametag. “I’ll wait for them…Eren.”

The noises of the flower shop had quieted to a dull buzzing that Eren could barely hear over the sound of his own heartbeat, shuddering to life in his chest. He walked, zombie-like, toward the backroom. He didn’t hear Mikasa call out his name as he passed and his skin didn’t even feel the cold air as he stood in the large walk-in cooler where they stored extra product.

After pacing up and down the aisles a few times, Eren found what he was looking for. There, in the very back corner, a large bundle of lavender lisianthus blooms were tucked next to dozens of white and pink roses. 

He brought them to his station and began cutting the stems, arranging them neatly in a curved glass vase with white stones set in the bottom.

“Are you okay?” Mikasa asked softly from behind his shoulder. “You’re singing Justin Bieber and you look… happy. Did you eat some of Jean’s chocolate? Eren, what did we say about floristing under the influence—” 

Eren turned and grabbed her gently by the shoulders. “Mikasa, I’m not high. I’m…fine.” He struggled a bit to find the right words to describe how he was feeling, which felt a bit like there was a sunset blooming in his mind. “Great, even.” 

“Okay.” Mikasa pressed a cold palm to his forehead. “You don’t feel like you have a temperature.” 

Eren grabbed her hand and spun her around quickly, dipping her almost to the floor and then placing her back on her feet. “I’m a belieber, Kasa.”

“What? What does he have to do with anything?” Mikasa’s eyebrows were raised, but there was a warmth in her tired eyes that he had stirred with his exuberance.

Eren put a hand to his chest. “Cupid shot me with his arrow of love.” 

“Cupid?” Mikasa laughed. 

“Yes, he was very short in stature,” Eren nodded. “I’m sure.”

“Okay, I don’t think that’s how it works,” Mikasa shook her head. “I’m going back to work, I don’t event want to know.”

Eren hummed as he finished putting together the bouquet. He wrapped a deep purple ribbon around the base of the vase as the final touch and carried it carefully back to the front of the room. 

He could see Levi’s profile as he stood off to the side with his hands in his pockets. He was dressed in a black coat that looked a little formal for a Saturday, but it suited him. Most importantly, his brow was creased and the corner of his mouth was curled back into grimace as he watched two tall women engaged in a tug-of-war over the last child-sized teddy bear.

Eren thought he was going to come in his pants. Finally, someone who hated this godforsaken holiday as much as he did.

“Levi,” Eren called out, fluffing the flowers once more with his hands just to stop them from shaking. The soft petals brushed against his palms like kisses.

“I brought a blank card from the back for you to fill out,” Eren said, pushing it toward Levi once he’d made it back to the counter.

“Thanks,” Levi said gratefully, and Eren watched as he scrawled out a personalized note. For some reason, the act made Eren’s heart swell three more sizes in his chest. 

When he woke up this morning, Eren was sure that he absolutely did not have a heart and now, he was quietly and inescapably transferring ownership to the short stranger rising up on his tip-toes to smell the lavender lisianthus blooms.

But, Eren had to be sure. “Did you need anything else? Something for a… significant other?” 

Levi shook his head quickly. “No, I’m…” he paused for a moment, his eyes tunneling into Eren’s. “No, thank you.”

Then he smiled at Eren. Shy, awkward, a little too big and goofy, but still the best thing that Eren had seen all day.

They stared at each other, not speaking, for longer than what was probably normal. Someone in the back popped a balloon, breaking the moment.

“Oh, wow, it’s six already,” Levi said after glancing at his watch, but he didn’t make a move to leave.

Eren shuffled his feet uselessly behind the counter.

“Well,” Levi said, sliding the vase slowly off the counter. “Thanks for your help, Eren. My mother is going to love these. They’re lovely.”

“Wait, uh,” Eren scratched the back of his neck, casting his gaze to the counter. “Were you, ah—are you, uh, flirting with me?”

Levi’s eyebrows disappeared behind his dark fringe.

“I mean, oh sorry, all the Valentine’s Day bullshit and no sleep has clearly clouded my judgment—” 

“Yes.” 

“Here, why don’t you take these chocolates, on-the-house. Wait… what did you say?”

“Yes,” Levi repeated, licking his lips. “I’m pretty shitty at it, I’m surprised you could even pick up on it at all.” 

“You...like me?” Eren repeated dumbly. 

“Yes,” Levi said a third time, smiling again. 

“I can’t believe I’m giving my number out on Valentine’s Day,” Eren laughed, handing his card over to Levi. 

“Hey, it’s the most romantic day of the year.”

Levi and Eren laughed as the bouquet of lisianthus blooms stood between them, fragrant and soft, and when their fingertips brushed it felt like the beginning of something.

**Author's Note:**

> Follow me @cinnamonskull on tumblr. Leave some love - it's Valentine's Day people.


End file.
